


Why not?

by Wonderfulworld



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: All will be explained in time, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Awkward Flirting, Complicated Relationships, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, I thought of this during therapy, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Not being perfect people, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey Needs A Hug (Star Wars), Romance, Slow Burn, that should be an archive warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:15:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29850363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonderfulworld/pseuds/Wonderfulworld
Summary: She smiled at him. His frown somehow worsened and he seemed to contemplate for a moment. Then he held one hand out of the car window, his middle finger raised.Rey just wants someone to care about her.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Why not?

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written for this fandom before so let's see what happens.   
> I know tagging can differ fandom to fandom so let me know if there's anything I've missed. Xx

The lady with her hair in two buns got her car checked every 3 months. It was done under the cover of night and was accompanied by soft whispers despite the emptiness of the garage. Her perfect A-line skirts and expensive looking handbag and perfectly placed hair were somewhat of a marvel in the grimy workshop between a gas station that sold alcohol to minors out the back window and a chinese takeaway run by a white man with yellowing teeth and no health code certificate. The car was part of the intrigue about her, the Chevrolet Bel Air was almost obnoxious looking, even more ridiculous in itself when compared to the woman driving it. 

Rey hadn’t started fixing the cars yet at that point, still observing in silence from her stool in the corner, feet swinging below clad in third-hand shoes, and so watched with keen interest as the woman gracefully stepped out of the car with a thoughtful smile on her face. Rey had been sitting in the corner of this garage for more days than she could count, it was the furthest she could get from Mr Plutt when he was drinking in the evenings and the men around the garage never seemed to give her a moment's notice, but she remembered it clearly. 

The first time Rey had watched her, debating with the man behind the desk with a calm but threatening tone, her heart had beat so fast she felt the blood pressure in her earlobes. This was  _ it _ . This was the moment her mother came and collected her from the mess of a flat directly above the garage and it’s willfully ignorant inhabitant. Her mother must be that woman, who walked with her shoulders pulled back and her chin high, and she must have come to save her. 

Instead the woman leaned against the desk as the man, fondly known as Chewie by the teen boys who worked weekends, shuffled off with a grumble. Then she looked around the garage with a slight look of disgust. As if, given half the chance, she would’ve turned the place into a 5 star restaurant or a concert hall where grand ballets were performed. 

Rey was under no doubt that she could achieve that. This woman could do anything she wanted. And she was looking right at Rey, cocking her head to the side and waving with the softest smile. She didn’t approach, didn’t say anything, didn’t wrap Rey in her arms and tell her it would all be okay now. She just smiled and then turned back to the grumbling man with an unforgiving gaze. Apparently this was all the confirmation 10 year old Rey needed. 

She was her mother. She had to be. Why else would she grace such a place? Why else would she even look at Rey, sitting in the corner and scribbling on instructions for old machine parts? Maybe she just didn’t know it yet. Rey could convince her. 

The next time she arrived, she was already grinning at Rey when she stepped out of the car, kicking the door closed behind her with her heeled shoe, seemingly without a care for the paintjob. Rey grinned back this time, having realised a month after the fact that she hadn’t last time and perhaps that was why she’d still been sitting on her stool when the vehicle backed out of the garage and drove off down the street. The woman placed the car key, a single key with a piece of leather tied through it, into her perfect handbag, nodded to Rey and then approached the desk again. 

Rey had never been bothered by girly things. She’d certainly never understood why, when the girls at school pretended to play mommies and daddies on the playground, they stood on the tips of their toes and held out their arms like they were carrying precious things over their forearms. Watching this woman, branded handbag casually over her arm and heels clicking a musical tune on the concrete floor, she wanted all the handbags and high heels in the world. 

The woman left again, a mere hour later, with another wave, nod, smile to Rey. Again, the car backed out and drove down the road and Rey stayed planted to her seat. But her theory would not be dropped, and so she prepared herself for next time. 

The next time was Rey’s well-predicted three months later. She’d learned early on that whilst car fanatics may be angry and impulsive at times, they were also punctual about car check ups, and kept to their appointments religiously. So she was ready; hair in perfect braids and bows that she’d managed to convince Rose, the quiet girl in school who suffered as many taunts as she did, to tire over for most of their afternoon break. Her shoes were cleaned, along with her usually muddy knees, and her socks were rolled all the way up instead of down. She’d even brought her school bag, although it was scruffy and probably older than she was, packed with pyjamas because if she hadn’t realised she was Rey’s mum yet she probably didn’t have spare clothes for her. 

When the clock hand above the desk flicked to 10 o’clock, the Chevrolet Bel Air pulled in smoothly. Rey’s fingers twitched as she gripped at the seat of the stool, a smile already covering her face. 

“Miss Organa.” Chewie grumbled sourly from his spot at the desk as the woman stepped out of the car. She didn’t smile at Rey, she didn’t have a bag, her hair was down, but it was still her. Her eyes were red, like she’d been crying and Rey’s chest seized up at the idea. “Rates gone up.” Chewie hummed and ‘Miss Organa’ (Rey was practically shaking with the excitement of this new information) clicked her tongue and then looked over at him. 

“No. It hasn’t.” Then she smiled brilliantly and turned to Rey. “Running away from home?”

_ Home.  _

Rey’s eyebrows furrowed but Miss Organa just looked pointedly at her school bag. Rey shook her head, Miss Organa was still smiling.

“What’s in the bag then?” 

“School work.” 

“Oh? Do you like school?” Rey shrugged, trying to find something interesting to say, to keep the conversation going, but seemed to have swallowed her tongue. “I used to love school. Algebra was my favourite.” Rey scrunched up her nose with disgust and the woman laughed lightly. “They’re just puzzles. Like sudoku.” 

“Well, I like puzzles.” They had something in common. There must be piles and piles of puzzles at her house. Her  _ home.  _ And Rey could learn to do sudoku, Miss Organa could teach her. 

“Of course. Only the smartest people like puzzles.” 

Then she was arguing with Chewie again on the other side of the garage before sitting back in the car and driving off down the street. Rey liked puzzles. Rey was part of these ‘smartest people’. Rey was going to be the smartest person ever. 

The next time, Rey made sure she was working on algebra when the license plate FA1C0N, and it’s attached car, made its way into the garage. She was leaving in the back of that car. She looked up from her work, just long enough to see Miss Organa, back to her usual self and making her way over to Chewie. Then something caught her eye that made her heart drop straight down into her stomach.

Someone was already in the back of the car. In  _ Rey’s _ mom’s car. In  _ Rey’s _ seat. She didn’t want a brother, not even a little bit. The few boys she’d shared foster parents with made her want to tear her hair out. He’d be the first thing to go. He looked stupid as well, not like he thought of algebra as a puzzle or stole newspapers for the sudoku at the back or made sure his shoes were clean. His stupid floppy dark hair covered most of his face anyway. Surely Miss Organa wanted a child she could actually see. And he was too tall, cramped into  _ Rey’s  _ seat and looking distinctly unhappy about it. Maybe if she knocked on the window and asked nicely he’d swap. He looked old enough to look after himself. He probably didn’t even need a mom anymore, and if he left for college or university or whatever stupid teenage boys did then Rey could take his space. So Miss Organa didn’t get lonely. 

He finally looked out the window but not at her, instead scowling at the back of his mom and then rolling down the window. 

“Can you turn this noise off?!” He shouted and Rey almost fell off her stool. Miss Organa just apologised calmly to Chewie, turned on her heel and made her way over to the car. She didn’t speak to her son, instead opening the driver’s door, leaning over to the radio to press a button before slamming the car door shut again and walking over to Rey. Rey watched her with wide eyes as she approached. 

“Do you like Bill Withers?” Miss Organa asked with a smile and Rey just nodded in silence, hoping the woman had noticed the advanced algebra homework on her lap. Instead she just held out a cassette tape and waited for Rey to hold out her own hand before placing it in the palm of the girl’s hand. Rey gripped it tightly even as Miss Organa walked away again to whisper-shout at Chewie.

“Mo-om.” He was still leaning out the car window, now glaring at his mother before looking over at Rey with disdain. Rey sat up straight and made a calculated decision. Miss Organa smiled whether she was angry or not, she was always polite even when chastising. Rey could do the same. She smiled at him. His frown somehow worsened and he seemed to contemplate for a moment. Then he held one hand out of the car window, his middle finger raised. Rey just grinned wider and then looked back at  _ his _ mom. Not for long if she had anything to do with it. 

He pulled his hand back into the car, cranked the window back up and glared out the window on the other side. Miss Organa left again, an hour later, with the  _ wrong _ child in the back of her car. Rey certainly wouldn’t be looking like someone had spat into her soup if she’d taken his spot.

Rey used her new hand gesture five times at school in the following weeks and got detention for each incident. She used the time to work on other people’s algebra homework, she was getting concerningly good at math, and eventually had raised enough money to buy something to play the cassette in. 

  
  


The next time, the last time, a man was leaning against the desk, laughing too loudly at Chewie, at 9:57. He looked up at the clock and then seemed to notice Rey for the first time. She had Finn’s (a boy from the grade above who Rose liked to stick her tongue out at in the corridors) homework on her lap, her school bag packed with her new cassette player safely inside ready on the floor beside her and had even managed to braid her own hair. 

“Thanks for the heads up, Chewie.” He said and the other man grunted. The man chuckled and then awkwardly stood a few feet away from Rey. “Hey kid.” She looked him up and down. She recognised his nose. He seemed not to notice her scrutiny and dug around in his worn, brown jacket pocket until he pulled out a pack of wrapped buttermints. He held it out to her and she took one, unwrapping it and popping it in her mouth as he did the same. She attempted to chew and then winced. 

“Don’t bite it. You’ll damage your teeth.” He didn’t sound mad, more amused. “Don’t want to find yourself at the dentist do you?” She shook her head and sucked on the sweet in the same absent-minded way he was. The sound of an engine caused her to almost swallow the sweet whole. The Chevrolet Bel Air rolled in with ease, as usual. The man patted her on the head awkwardly. 

“Mind yourself.” Then he walked to stand right in front of where the car usually parked. As if completely unbothered by the idea of being run over. 

Miss Organa, as always, was sitting in the driver’s seat. She spotted the man, slammed on the breaks and gripped the wheel. She just blinked at him for a moment. He put his hands on his hips and looked over at Rey to wiggle his eyebrows before putting on a deep frown and staring through the windshield. Miss Organa turned the engine off but the radio kept playing a song Rey vaguely recognised. She stepped out of the car, in her precarious high heels but didn’t bring her bag out with her. Instead her hands rested on her own hips as she mirrored the man opposite. He raised an eyebrow and she was the first to speak. 

“Did Ben tell you?” 

“You brought Ben here?” She answered by slamming the door shut and then pointing an accusatory finger at Chewie. The other man took his hands out his jacket pockets, adjusted his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. 

“What the-” He started loud but then glanced over at Rey. “-heck are you doing?” 

“You wouldn’t get it checked.” Her hands moved from her own hips to cross her chest. 

“It’s a stolen car, Leia. I can’t exactly take it to get a fucking-” 

“Han!” Leia Organa gasped. 

“-vehicle inspection, can I?”

“You wouldn’t even let Luke-”

“Oh, don’t start.” 

“Well, I’ve solved your problem haven’t I?” Her polite smile was back. “You’re welcome.”

“It wasn’t a problem.”

“You were driving Ben around in it, Han.” 

“I wasn’t going to drive the kid around in a dangerous car. What kind of father do you think I am?” His voice rose and rose and he was practically shouting at the end but Leia just seemed to get calmer. 

“I honestly have no idea.” She said dryly, a smile still on her lips even as Han spat at the floor and went in for the kill.

“He said he’d rather live with me.” 

“Of course he did.” She shrugged as if this wasn’t news, as if this was the sort of thing they discussed in backwater garages. “You’re the cool dad who taught him to drive in a stolen car and bought his friends drinks and let him smoke in the house.” She was shouting herself by the end but then took a deep breath. Her smile didn’t return. “Because he thinks we’re getting a divorce.” Han grimaced for a second, then shrugged. 

“Are we not?”

Leia Organa sighed, looked up to the heavens and then back at the man across from her. 

“Get in the car, Han.” He sighed himself, then clicked his fingers at her. 

“I’m driving.” She tossed him the key, apparently still clutched in her fingers. She moved past him to walk round to the other side of the car and he pinched her side. She opened the passenger door and then stopped before climbing in. She looked at Rey one final time over the roof of the car and around Han’s head. 

“Hey, Sweetie.” 

And she didn’t come back. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've got the next few chapters written and the rest planned out but I'll see what kind of reception this gets before posting more xx


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